


Office Space

by Ylevihs



Series: How Not to Fall [56]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Farm Headcanons, Retribution Spoilers, Self Harm, Thoughts of Suicide, minor OCs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24823222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylevihs/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: Richard reaches Regina's office.
Relationships: Herald/Sidestep (Fallen Hero)
Series: How Not to Fall [56]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327892
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	Office Space

Why couldn’t it feel like falling?

At least falling he could come to grips with. But this had the stubborn indecency to feel nothing like the well worn comfort of vertigo. Nothing like the weak kneed and heavy stomached pull of good, understanding, reliable gravity. 

This pulled backwards instead of down. Fishhooks. Harpoons embedded deep and catching on his ribcage and reeling him back. Back to the plane. Back and away. Regina’s feet skittered as he forced them forwards, desperately fighting the salvation at his heels. 

He wasn’t sure when it had happened. Daniel’s hand appeared at the small of Regina’s back. Cold comfort. Not alone. Not alone but god wouldn’t it better if he were? Would it be better? Would he be better able to resist the urge to turn and let himself float to the surface and be swept away by merciful currents if he were alone? Richard didn’t imagine for a second that if given a real chance here. Here in this place of all places. 

He wouldn’t. Wouldn’t he? Alone it would have been easier to let himself fall apart. 

A quiet and sinewy voice from the depths of his chest started a whisper campaign. Insidious and cruel and hell bent on keeping him focused. He had to live, it said. He had made promises now. There were people relying on him again. If he was killed doing his duty, then that was a pity. A shame. A disgrace. But, it hissed, now in the darker corners of his mind against the icy edges, he couldn’t lay down and die. There was no more option to be the feral dog dying in the shadows, miserable and whining. If they wanted him dead now, he. He would. Would he? Bite every inch. Every hand. Every throat. 

Make them regret not putting him down when they had the chance. 

Richard was struck with a sudden pang through his chest at how desperately he missed Daniel’s mind burning into his own. Whatever other whispers occupied his thoughts were listening to the violent gossip, passing it around behind doors long frozen shut. Even the smallest ray of sunlight would have been comforting. He leaned Regina’s weight a little more against Daniel’s hand and felt the pressure shift higher. Steadying. 

“Where do we need to go first?” Ricardo’s voice punched through, voice tense but body language calm. Face neutral. Easy looking. Like he belonged. No. Don’t think about that. Don’t imagine him being here.

An extremely cruel, incredibly smug, terrified voice pointed out that _he wasn’t just thinking about it_. Ricardo really was there. His feet on the ground. Head held high. Shoulders set firm and straight. Here to do a job. If not for the way his eyes flickered, and the way the corners of his mouth twitched. And his fingers curled into fists whenever he couldn’t help it. Clearly angry. Clearly angry for Richard. About him. Maybe towards him, but that could be dealt with at another time. 

They reached the end of the hallway. Left would take them towards the training yard. Staff facilities. Human, hah, resources and financial teams. The administrative offices. Meeting rooms. The staff cafeteria and break room. Richard had to force himself to turn right and go down a series of three or four steps. Small declines. So that one wouldn’t notice the decent. At least Dante had been given a sign above the door. 

He swallowed hard and almost choked on the sensation. “My office,” they passed an open door that led down another hallway and sent Richard’s thoughts scrambling. Where did that lead? Was it where he remembered? Or Regina thought? Each time he tried to rely on her for the smaller bits of information, the thoughts slipped through his fingers like minnows through a wide net. Another few steps down. 

Not the labs. Not R&D. They would have to go there, he knew, but at least not first. Not right away. And they hadn’t been through here when he’d been here last. Years had passed though. Departments gained and lost funding; spaces grew and shrank with the amount of money they had available. The medical wing had once been a two room office and exam room affair. By the time he’d slumped out of a tube there were full surgical suites. Fully kitted torture chambers. Another few steps down. 

Even if Research and Development hadn’t been down that hallway before, it was in that direction. And there was a chance it had cannibalized the other spaces. They were going to pass another security check point soon. But if Regina’s brain was right, and hadn’t scrambled up this part like so many eggs, it would be unguarded. There would be cameras watching. Always cameras watching. But budget cuts had meant reduced staff and reduced hours for these sections. No one wanted to work overtime for free.

The air around them increasingly smelled of bleach. Industrial strength cleaners. Not the medical wing yet. But close enough that the stench of it carried through the vents. Another few steps down. Harder to walk with it filling his lungs. Burning and itching his eyes. He wanted to run. He wanted.

It wouldn’t be hard. It. It would. He couldn’t. If it were him, alone, he could. 

“Should we ask what you need to do there?” Ricardo continued. His voice was tighter now; he’d noticed the guard station. The _empty_ guard station. 

Out before he could stop it: “No,” Of course they shouldn’t ask. What good came from knowing about that? What. Good. A sigh punched its way out from Regina’s chest. “Re…I can issue a number of directions and warnings from my office,” he explained. Edgy and nervous. The walls having ears around here could be literal sometimes. 

They were getting close to it now and the feel of the air changed. The hallway shifted gradually from poured concrete into tile that clicked beneath her heels. The doors on either side of the hallway became fewer and farther between. The rooms they hid became bigger. Deeper set. Better lit. Another few steps down. Daniel’s hand left Regina’s back.

No one was sitting at the desk of the guard station. No one was there to notice Richard fumble Regina’s fingers as she pulled out her clearance badge and swiped it through the electronic door lock. No one to stop her from breaking protocol and bringing in two uncertified men behind her. There was a half-drunk cup of cold coffee, slowly congealing in a plain white mug. 

Something deep in Richard’s mind made note of that. Was that just sloppy guards? Or did they leave in a hurry? Ricardo had said something about an issue in the other hangar, but would they call an entry level security guard to leave their post to come help? They might. They might not have. It was carefully filed away with a bright yellow tab for easy reference. 

Beyond the security doors, there was sound. The background hum of electronics. Another few steps down. The hallway widened and to the right, there was a small sitting area. Plastic chairs around plastic tables. A fridge. A vending machine. Someone was sitting there, sipping a soda and flipping through a magazine. They wore a lab coat over a pair of maroon scrubs. Their eyes lit up when they saw Regina, but all they did was raise their can in greeting.

“Welcome back Director,” ah, not a named basis then. Still the Boss, either through novelty or formality. Their face did shift slightly, taking in the disheveled clothes. The slight swelling around her face. “Everything alright?” Eyes taking in Ricardo and Daniel and not recognizing them. But taking in the pilot uniforms they’d both shimmied into. Daniel’s didn’t fit quite right and made him look frumpy. Ricardo’s didn’t fit right but in a way that made it difficult to move his shoulders, even as he crossed his arms over his chest. Luckily, Ricardo spoke first. 

“Had some rough turbulence when we landed,” and rather than serious, he sounded. Apologetic? It took Richard a split second before that puzzle piece slotted into place. 

He tried to capture Regina’s cadence. The vaguely disgusted tone of obvious superiority. Annoyed that she should even have to speak to someone who wasn’t obviously an equal. “You should be grateful that I’m letting you both off with written warnings,” hard t’s. Clipped speech. It helped to raise her chin. The person in scrubs—Regina’s brain tried to float the name Freddy, but it wouldn’t stick—winced in sympathy to the pilots. 

“Well. Good to have you back at least. Doctor Andrews had something she wanted you to sign,” a small pause, “I think she left it in your office, but she said she wanted to talk with you about it,”   
Doctor Andrews. Did he know an Andrews? She could be any sort of Doctor, but the name didn’t register immediately. She may have been new. 

“Oh,” don’t uh. Regina didn’t uh. She wasn’t good with people, but she didn’t stutter. “Very good,” not a thank you either. Regina didn’t thank people if she didn’t have to. “Enjoy your break,” which maybe Freddy raised their can again to and nodded blankly. A small piece of the tangled anxiety in Richard’s throat unwound itself. Not as bad as it could have gone. Would Regina have been so casual? Offered any explanation at all? It had been too long since he’d seen her interact with people she wasn’t angry with and actually considered human beings. 

Maybe not Freddy turned their attention back to their magazine after sending one more look of ‘good luck getting reamed out fellas’ to Ricardo and Daniel. They moved on.

Another hallway—this one wider. A few more steps down. More open and somehow both more and less sterile feeling than the one they had left. The walls were a pale, off shade of green. A kind liar would have called it pastel. Anyone who had ever been in the hospital would recognize it as the yellow green color of old bile. Apparently, a study had once determined that it was a calming color. Richard had only ever found it to be unsettling. The hallway entered into a hub, a waiting room of sorts. Three rows of chairs, perhaps five deep. Hallways on each wall. 

Like the waiting room of the physical therapy office. Somehow both innocuous and dreadful in equal measure. There was a placard over each hallway, showing where they led. Richard couldn’t make himself read them. It wouldn’t even take ten minutes to be back out in the airplane. Barely five, if he ran, even in her heels, and he could. He wouldn’t have to. 

Another swipe of her keycard at the heavy metal door straight ahead. Another shorter hallway at the end of which was only one door. It was a nice door to be fair. Higher quality than the others they had passed. It had a reinforced bullet proof and clouded window for the upper half. A complex security lock at the handle. Cameras hid in the corners. A hidden biometric scanner on the interior of the handle. Regina used to complain about it, in the winter. She’d leave her gloves on sometimes and lock herself out of her own office. 

It opened for her now. Lights flickering on with the movement. Door hissing as the pneumatic locks slid back. Followed by a small click from the metal and. 

And then beyond it was Regina’s office. Cold and clean, modern in every aesthetic. Hard edges and white and stainless steel and that soft teal glass that was so in fashion. Sleek white filing cabinets lined the lower half of the walls. There were no clocks. There were no calendars. No framed pictures of friends or family—in their stead were framed degrees and doctorates. Awards dotted the walls in neat, orderly fashion. Her desk was functional. A clean glass top. No drawers. A thin backed monitor and under the desk, a thick and silent computer. And behind her desk, one way glass, hidden behind vertical slatted window shades. Richard did not let himself look out of it. A door off to the back left of the room. It would open up into the massive space, connected by a metal staircase. A door that led down into the depths of hell that Regina had set herself up as God to look down on. 

Daniel and Ricardo followed him in, and Ricardo’s attention was immediately on the window. “What’s down there?” Hand already reaching to pull aside some of the slats and peek down. Richard let him. It could be any number of things. When he’d been there the first time, she’d had the area set up downstairs to observe the growing vats. Those had been moved by the time he returned, and by then she lorded over the programming and testing grounds. 

The silence from Ricardo’s back grew stronger. Muscles tensed beneath the too tight pilot jacket. Daniel floated over to his side and was a much easier read. Face tightening and then falling slightly.   
“It…looks like a hospital almost?” voice soft and dangerous. Not wanting to see what he was seeing but. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, judging from both of their body language. Richard would have laughed if he felt like he could make his lungs work. 

“A hospital in a shitty science fiction flick,” Ricardo corrected and turned away from the window, letting the slats fall back into place. “There are people down there,” he said, voice unreadable. Face unreadable.

Richard told himself that he didn’t care which area she’d set up to observe. It wouldn’t be anything visceral—she had to meet with other scientists and possible investors in her office sometimes. It would be treated, and thought of as, a factory floor. She could oversee whichever part of the process she wanted, even if having to pack up and reinstall equipment would make people grumble and moan. But he nodded. And felt a twitching in Regina’s legs. What would happen if he pitched himself over the edge of the stair railing outside that door? Would it be high enough to. To. What would happen to his mind if she died around him? Would he be rejected back to his body on the plane? Tempting. Would he be trapped inside the dying shell, succumbing as soon as her already damaged brain splattered onto the concrete? Even more tempting still. 

“Lab coats or,” the or hung in the air.

“Both,” not so unreadable then. Acid in his words and eating at his lips, making him sneer. “Let’s do what we need to do and get out of here,” hands curling into fists and staying that way. Itching for a fight. Richard couldn’t blame him. He needed a drink. Daniel floated over to the computer and started it up, a pleasant little jingle announcing its start. Ricardo set about opening and rifling through file cabinets; Richard couldn’t begin to guess what he was looking for and. It would be a lie to say he didn’t care. But he forced himself around to stand at Daniel’s side and look at the monitor. 

“I need to get into the security logs. I can issue evacuation orders from here that can go out to this entire portion of the complex,” her voice muttered out between her lips, a fresh wave of exhaustion hitting now that they were no longer at immediate risk of someone finding them. The door to her office was closed and relocked automatically. The door leading up from the lower floor could only be opened by voice command and opened outward. “And then,” he searched through what could be deciphered from Regina’s mental mapping. From his own memories. “I’ll need to find the maintenance and electrical server rooms,” and to the pause that followed he squirmed internally, taking a seat in Regina’s rolling chair and her legs screamed their gratitude at him. 

Her systems weren’t terribly difficult to navigate; computer programming for a body was one thing. It seemed she’d left her desktop mostly unaltered. A few passwords had to be ripped out from between the weakly sparking connections, but they came with a little force. Personal files. Personnel files. Experiment logs and write ups. Observations. Blueprints. All of them tucked away and neatly encrypted. Now being undone with a few keystrokes and sent off to Mia Ochoa’s email. Sent off, in separate mailings, to his own email. Videos. Soundbites. Too many, far too many to read in one sitting, and certainly not now. But novels of documentation. Regina was nothing if not a thorough examiner. 

And then the cherry on top—meeting transcripts. Names and numbers of politicians. Both American and Soviet. Chinese. Cuban. Field reports of how well her precious little projects were performing. A quick overview of the hundreds upon hundreds of case logs, in chronological order, found even the call Richard had placed when he’d called in the Special Directive. She’d saved and documented every last piece of her process, everything she touched and everyone she talked to got written down. Including. 

Richard jolted suddenly as a loud slam jarred the room. Ricardo had forced one of the cabinets closed with such force it almost dented the wall behind it. He had papers in his hands. Laminated and slick looking—not photographs but. Rough drafts, Richard realized. Rough drafts of fake magazine articles. He knew what they showed. How they had been left open to certain pages. Left around his recovery room. Casual things that scientists would ‘forget’, showing him how the world outside moved on without him. Had forgotten about him. Had been glad that the burden of his existence was gone from their lives and they could finally move on. 

Marshal Charge was a frequent player in these printed charades. Ricardo’s hands were shaking, jaw clenched tight, as he read over the fake articles. Flipped over altered photos to see the notes Regina and other editors had made on what could be improved or changed. 

Richard watched his eyes narrow and then look back towards the window with a sneer. His own stomach twisted, cold dread pulsing through his veins and he had to take a deep breath to steady himself. Failed. 

“How can you not want her dead?” not looking at Regina. Not looking at Richard inside of Regina, either. His curiosity clearly got the better of him and Daniel floated over to inspect the articles for himself in silence. Richard felt a spike of furious exhaustion in his limbs. “After everything she’s done to you. Everything she’s done to all those people,” accusatory. Richard dug her fingernails deep into her palms, coming back with crescents of flesh stuck beneath the nails. 

“Because I want her to suffer,” teeth clenched just as tightly as Ricardo’s and earning him a terrible. A soft look from Daniel that made him want to shut down and die. “I want her and everyone who helped and worked with her and supported her to suffer,” Daniel looked away. Thank whatever fucking thing motivated that, because Richard could do absolutely nothing to stop the words from stabbing his tongue on their way out. Ricardo held his glare. Crunching the papers between his hands. “I want them to feel desperate. To feel their world crumbling around them with no way out but their own hands. I want them driven to the brink and then even further,” he wanted them in pain. He wanted them dead. By their own devices. 

Daniel sucked in a little air and Richard felt the skin on Regina’s back start crawling. Don’t say anything. Don’t get self-righteous and. 

Somewhere. Not too terribly far away, but far enough that none of the men in Regina’s office could possibly know what was happening, the regene Richard had spoken to did something very dangerous involving a very sensitive device. And every alarm in the complex began shrieking at once.


End file.
